At Theater Companies, Playing the Part of Real Estate Agent

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Darko Tresnjak, a Broadway director, is living in a temporary apartment on West 42nd Street for two months. The sunlit apartment reminds him of California, where he lived for seven years.CreditCreditChester Higgins Jr./The New York Times

Carly DiFulvio Allen spends a good amount of her time thinking about apartments. She scans listings, she talks to brokers, she walks through kitchens and tests the water pressure. She even took a woman on a four-hour Citi Bike tour of neighborhoods where she might want to live.

But Ms. DiFulvio Allen does not work in real estate. She works in theater, as a company manager at Roundabout Theater Company, which must provide housing to any actor who comes to New York City to work on one of its shows.

Theater companies and stage productions around the country are often obliged to house actors, directors and others from out of town. In some instances, it is a union obligation. In others, it is just the cost of doing business with a bright star. In New York City, it also means that a life in the arms of the theater can include elbowing around in a fraught and expensive market for real estate.

“We do everything we can to keep costs down while keeping in mind that unhappy or uncomfortable people don’t make a very good show,” said Tamar Haimes, a general manager on productions like “The Glass Menagerie” and “Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella.” “It’s a very personal decision. What is gorgeous to one person is a dump to another.”

At Roundabout, housing actors who are not local is a union requirement, so the company has become quite practiced at it. It has built a temporary wall and assembled cribs. It has dealt with bedbugs and fleas. It has a collection of household accessories, like comforters and teakettles, which it stores in an old freezer at Studio 54, now one of its theater spaces. Ms. DiFulvio Allen even keeps an as-yet-unused phone number for an “energy-ist” on file in case somebody demands that an apartment be cleansed of unfriendly spirits.

“You get all kinds of requests,” said Sydney Beers, general manager of Roundabout. “ ‘I smoke; I want a balcony. I’m scared of elevators; I want a walk-up — but a nice walk-up. I cannot go on stage if I don’t have a lot of sunlight in my apartment.’ ”

But at companies like Roundabout, Ms. Beers continued, housing is not just a requirement, but also a way to keep the actors in good, enthusiastic spirits, especially since many of them take a pay cut when they sign up for a show there.

“They’re coming here and working for a nonprofit theater,” Ms. Beers said. “A happy actor is what you want.”

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Harriet Harris, now on Broadway as the wicked stepmother in “Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella,” in a residents' lounge at her temporary home on West 57th St.CreditMarilynn K. Yee/The New York Times

On Broadway, there is no such requirement, but housing is often negotiated into the contract of sought-after actors and directors.

Darko Tresnjak, for example, the director of “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder,” now in rehearsals for a Broadway run, is staying in a rental building on West 42nd Street, a studio with an entire wall of windows. And the actress Harriet Harris is staying in a one-bedroom on West 57th Street, with nice light and a sliver of a Central Park view, during her Broadway turn as the wicked stepmother in “Cinderella.”

“Nobody would ever say, ‘Oh gee, let’s live in Midtown!’ ” said Ms. Harris, a former New Yorker based in Los Angeles. “But for this job, it’s very nice.”

Whether for a Broadway show or a nonprofit-theater production, company and general managers cobble together a wide variety of options, including corporate housing, rental buildings with flexible landlords, and furnished apartments found through brokers who specialize in short-term leases. (General managers say those brokers can become well practiced in negotiating a broken lease if, say, a show closes earlier than expected.) The amount a production is willing or able to spend on housing varies widely, as well. Marie-Claire Martineau, an associate broker and owner at Maison International, who regularly works with theaters and productions, said it can range from less than $3,000 a month up to $8,000, or even, in very rare cases, more than $10,000 for a major star.

Of course, discounts can sometimes be found, sometimes for those who need it least.

Lisa Morris, president of Road Concierge, a company that handles production travel, recounted once calling a luxurious Manhattan hotel to inquire about its most lavish suite. After she mentioned that the room was for Al Pacino, she was told it would be his for the price of the hotel’s smallest standard room.

“I’m in a unique position of trying to protect a celebrity’s privacy, but also letting them know who they are so we can get the better rate,” she said.

Outside New York City, some regional theaters can solve the problem by simply building houses. Goodspeed Musicals in East Haddam, Conn., for example, built 17 new houses a few years ago, bringing its total close to 30.

But even less competitive, lower-cost housing markets still have their challenges.

“Our housing here is what it is,” said Seth Shepsle, general manager of the Two River Theater in Red Bank, N.J. While the quality and quantity of their housing has improved in recent years, because Red Bank is small, there are only so many options — and only one of them always allows pets.

“There’s a dog in the show right now, so that dog took up our dog housing,” Mr. Shepsle said, referring to a Toto look-alike named Snickers. “None of the other actors could bring their pets.” And for that reason, he said, there were some who declined to work on the show.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A21 of the New York edition with the headline: At Theater Companies, Some Managers Play the Part of Real Estate Agent. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe